NOTE: Pictures
Picture 1 from last nights evening dinner in Main Dining Room.
Picture 2, 3 & 4 from visit to Oceanographic Museum & Aquarium.
Picture 5 from our walk around Monte Carlo.
Pciture 6 of the Grand Casino.
Picture 7 from car located near route of the upcoming Grand Prix.
As we mentioned, this is our third visit to this port of call and each visit involved an overnight stay. While it’s nice to visit areas of the world for the very first time it’s also nice to go back to places that we have previously visited. The advantage of the latter is that we know exactly what we want to see and it was also nice. This was certainly the case for Monte Carlo and since we are very familiar with this city we could take our daughter and son-in-law to those places that we thought they would enjoy.
Weather can also be another factor contributing to ones enjoyment of a particular port of call. For example, cloudy, damp or rainy weather can certainly diminish ones enjoyment of a port of call. The first time we visited Monte Carlo it was on a very hot, and humid day in the middle of the summer when this port of call was literally filled with tourists. We found it tiring to walk for long periods of time and the streets were full of tourists so we had only an average opinion of this port. A few years later we had the opportunity to visit this port in the fall when the weather was picture perfect, with moderate temperatures, and we had the added benefit of far fewer tourists. Saying that we had a wonderful time was an understatement as we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Just like on our last visit, we have had a glorious time this past day and one half. The weather was perfect, there were far fewer tourists than in the summer, and all of this added to our enjoyment of this port of call.
Our original plan was to spend a portion of our time in Monte Carlo and then we thought that we might visit Nice or Eze since the original itinerary had us arriving here by 10:AM. However, the time was pushed back a couple of hours to accommodate our midnight departure from Rome given the World Cruise Event, so in the end we decided to spend all of our time here. (More on this in a moment) Yesterday, we focused on walking around to the major sites in the city from the beautiful gardens, to the Place, to the Cathedral, to the Casino, while taking in the beautiful views of the city and the ocean that surrounds this beautiful port of call. The streets near the Palace have the look of Disneyworld. All one needs is Disney music playing in the background, and one would think that they have been transported to either Disney World or Disney Land.
We enjoyed another nice sleep last evening. The view of the city at night is always spectacular. We have a beautiful view of an enormous yacht and it looked even more impressive all lit up. We have been told that close to 75-crew work on this ship for a private owner. To us, it is close in size to one of the Seabourn triplets.
Several passengers went off the ship last evening, either to the casino, or for dinner or for drinks. We prefer the ships food too much to consider eating off the ship. For us, this is five star food and the quality of the food, the wonderful service and the excellent ambience of the dining room is preferable over eating on land while in port. As we had mentioned we had ordered a special entrée and it was outstanding. Wow might be a better word to describe it.
We awoke early this morning and began our day with a workout in the Fitness Center. Once again Keith was the first in the Center and enjoyed a great workout on the Elliptical Machine. Anne Marie arrived a little while later and worked out on the Treadmill. John and Mary also worked out. As we were finishing our workout there were only two other passengers still there besides Mary.
After our workout we stopped by the Lido Café to get some coffee to take back to the room. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in our room. Our new butler has been wonderful and we appreciate all that he has done for us.
We met our daughter and son-in-law at 9:15 AM to continue seeing this wonderful port of call. One of the major reasons we decided not to venture out of this city is because we wanted to visit the Oceanographic Museum & Aquarium. This museum was founded in 1910 by Prince Albert I. It is located right adjacent to the sea. The interior of the building is beautiful, particularly the area of the museum. We saw a very impressive assortment of fish; many of which we have not seen before. We enjoyed a glorious morning in Monte Carlo.
We went back to the ship and had lunch in the Main Dining Room. Lunch was wonderful. We had our Salad Entrees and the kids enjoyed a variety of items. After lunch, we went back on shore and continued to walk around this lovely town. We walked to an area that we had not walked to in our previous stays which was adjacent to the shoreline.
Our ship left Monte Carlo at 6:00 PM. A major highlight for all four of us is that we had the opportunity to go to the bridge for the sail-away. This is certainly one of the nicest ports to observe from the bridge. We had a wonderful time and greatly appreciate the opportunity to be on the bridge for this sailaway.
Afterwards, we all went to the Silk Road Japanese Specialty Restaurant. This was the first opportunity for our daughter and son-in-law to dine there. Being lovers of sushi, they greatly enjoyed this restaurant, as do Mom and Dad. We all enjoyed the fabulous sushi served in this restaurant. Dad has been much more adventurous with the sushi/sashimi, Mom stays with the sushi. Like Keith, Jennifer and Gui also enjoy the sashimi along with the sushi. We plan to go back to Silk Road a couple of more times before we disembark the ship in Southampton.
After dinner, we went to a World Cruise Event which was called Shaken 007 Stirred wich was a show in honor of of his 88th birthday and 57th year in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. We greatly enjoyed the show.
After the show, we saw comedian Mike Goddard who we first saw on last years World Cruise. We enjoyed his show and he had us in stitches.
Tomorrow is a sea day.
Keith & Anne
